August 30th, OE 102
Mars Atmosphere Descent
"Cydonia. That's where you'll find what you're looking for."
Those were the words spoken by the Database, the artificial beings who seemed to be the first to fully grasp who, or rather what she really was.
The great "Face on Mars", it had once been known. A startling photograph that had once been said to be proof of civilization, but which after years had been determined to be nothing but an ordinary mount - a volcanic bubble on the planet's surface. Its mystery, a fluke... Or, so it had seemed. Once the Colonists from Earth had begun the noble, yet dirty work of turning the Red Planet's environment into something resembling amicable for human life, the problems had begun.
For as long as any could remember, the Cloud Stream had plagued the surface of Mars - a supposed unexpected side-effect of the terraforming process, or so it had been declared. At once limitless, exploitable resource and mysterious, terrifying phenomenon, its presence was both revered and cursed. Some even said it was the hand of God himself, protecting the people of Mars from those that would have subjugated them from the distant blue planet they had once called home. There was nowhere on Mars where the Stream was thickest, where it never seemed to abate, than Cydonia. To go there alone was a death sentence, to invite the reprisal of the cursed figures that walked in its shadows - some said, the dead returning for revenge, the "ghosts of Mars", shambling forth from their graves.
And yet...
As Remedy descended through the atmosphere, the orbital forces too busy fighting for their lives against a wholly different sort of problem, it was as if instinct guided her. The Getviewm seemed to welcome the arrival of the mist as it wafted up, like flying into a carpet, guiding her down, down to the planet's surface with little to no input from her. There were other shapes - half glimpsed mirages and forms that leered and peered at her from just out of sight... and then moved on, fading back into the dread mist from whence they came. There was no sense of fear, no doubt or anxiety, her steed guided itself gently, even as cliffs and ledges swung out at them without a single proximity alarm going off...
As if she had done all of this before.
Sure enough, the Enigma machine came to a halt, passing through the last of the thick fog, where the air had cleared such that she appeared to almost be within a dome - though whether it be by design or accident, none could say. All that was certain was what lay below:
Dark, metallic spires jutting up out of the face of the rock, sprouting forth like iron vines reaching for the heavens. Gouts of white fog spewed from great vents, a constant carpet that blanketed the soil from view. If it had indeed been a face, the Mesa would have appeared as if it were being torn asunder from the inside out, as though a mechanical seed had sprouted from its nose, spider-like legs stretching across its cheeks, lips, and forehead, as though whatever were within had been frozen at the moment of attempting to leap free of its fleshy prison like a B-grade horror monster.
Telltales winked across the super-structure's surface, dimly, faded lettering and broken, tattered spires indicating she was perhaps the first visitor this place had played host to...
In a long, long time.
Mars Atmosphere Descent
"Cydonia. That's where you'll find what you're looking for."
Those were the words spoken by the Database, the artificial beings who seemed to be the first to fully grasp who, or rather what she really was.
The great "Face on Mars", it had once been known. A startling photograph that had once been said to be proof of civilization, but which after years had been determined to be nothing but an ordinary mount - a volcanic bubble on the planet's surface. Its mystery, a fluke... Or, so it had seemed. Once the Colonists from Earth had begun the noble, yet dirty work of turning the Red Planet's environment into something resembling amicable for human life, the problems had begun.
For as long as any could remember, the Cloud Stream had plagued the surface of Mars - a supposed unexpected side-effect of the terraforming process, or so it had been declared. At once limitless, exploitable resource and mysterious, terrifying phenomenon, its presence was both revered and cursed. Some even said it was the hand of God himself, protecting the people of Mars from those that would have subjugated them from the distant blue planet they had once called home. There was nowhere on Mars where the Stream was thickest, where it never seemed to abate, than Cydonia. To go there alone was a death sentence, to invite the reprisal of the cursed figures that walked in its shadows - some said, the dead returning for revenge, the "ghosts of Mars", shambling forth from their graves.
And yet...
As Remedy descended through the atmosphere, the orbital forces too busy fighting for their lives against a wholly different sort of problem, it was as if instinct guided her. The Getviewm seemed to welcome the arrival of the mist as it wafted up, like flying into a carpet, guiding her down, down to the planet's surface with little to no input from her. There were other shapes - half glimpsed mirages and forms that leered and peered at her from just out of sight... and then moved on, fading back into the dread mist from whence they came. There was no sense of fear, no doubt or anxiety, her steed guided itself gently, even as cliffs and ledges swung out at them without a single proximity alarm going off...
As if she had done all of this before.
Sure enough, the Enigma machine came to a halt, passing through the last of the thick fog, where the air had cleared such that she appeared to almost be within a dome - though whether it be by design or accident, none could say. All that was certain was what lay below:
Dark, metallic spires jutting up out of the face of the rock, sprouting forth like iron vines reaching for the heavens. Gouts of white fog spewed from great vents, a constant carpet that blanketed the soil from view. If it had indeed been a face, the Mesa would have appeared as if it were being torn asunder from the inside out, as though a mechanical seed had sprouted from its nose, spider-like legs stretching across its cheeks, lips, and forehead, as though whatever were within had been frozen at the moment of attempting to leap free of its fleshy prison like a B-grade horror monster.
Telltales winked across the super-structure's surface, dimly, faded lettering and broken, tattered spires indicating she was perhaps the first visitor this place had played host to...
In a long, long time.
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